‘Camera Obscura’ is a show that brings together a body of works by artist and photographer Minnie Weisz.

Spanning the last seven years, these photographs are born out of her interest in the identity of spaces, particularly buildings on the brink of change, such as the Great Northern Hotel, or the Fish & Coal Offices in King's Cross. Weisz investigates the surroundings and social history of these sites, which worm their way into the photographic process.  Although persons are sometimes introduced into her pictures, she tends to leave them out, using installations of found objects – a suitcase, shoes, an old pair of roller skates – to author fictional memories of a building's past.

Alongside a more sober, documentary approach, highlighting the materiality of the architecture, Weisz fashions these deserted spaces as a camera obscura. Allowing light in through the pinhole of a darkened room, this technique inverts the outside view, projecting it back onto the walls inside. In this way, as the artist explains, the camera obscura becomes “the key which unlocks a dialogue between exterior and interior worlds.” In architecture and psychology, the term ‘liminal’ has often been used to describe places or moods that exist at the passage between alternate states. It is this kind of ‘between-ness’ or ‘third space’ that Weisz’ photography brings to the fore – both in terms of these buildings’ transitional nature and the creation of landscapes that lie at the threshold between dream and reality.
www.minnieweisz.co.uk
www.minnieweiszstudio.co.uk

Biography

Minnie Weisz studied Communication Art and Design at the Royal College of Art and the London College of Printing. The artist has been turning buildings 'inside out' since her first camera obscura show at the 2006 London Architecture Festival. She has shown in London, Istanbul, and most recently at the 2012 Pinhole Photography Festival at the Royal Botanic Garden in Edinburgh. She works from her studio in the heart of King’s Cross, collaborating and curating shows, as well as running photography workshops in her darkroom.

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  Images © Minnie Weisz
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  Minnie Weisz Studio